CHAP. II.

WHEREIN IS SHEWED WHAT IT IS FOR A CHRISTIAN TO STAND IN ORDER; TOGETHER WITH HIS DUTY IN THIS PARTICULAR, AND THE DANGER OF STRAGGLERS FROM THEIR OWN PLACE.

SECONDLY, "To stand," amounts to as much as to stand every one in his rank and proper station, and is here opposed to all disorder, or straggling from our place. When a captain sees his soldiers march or fight out of their rank and order, then he bids stand. Military discipline is so strict in this case, that it allows none to stir from their place without special warrant. It hath cost some their lives for fighting out of their place, though with great success. Maulius killed his own son for no other fault. From hence the note is,

That it should be the care of every Christian to stand orderly in the particular place wherein God hath set him. The devil's method is first to rout, and then to ruin. Order supposeth company; one that walks alone cannot go out of his rank. This place therefore and rank wherein the Christian is to stand, relates to some society or company in which he walks. The Christian may be considered relating to a threefold society, church, commonwealth, and family. In all there are several ranks and places. In the church, officers and private members. In the commonwealth, magistrates and people. In the family, masters and servants; parent and children; husband and wife. The welfare of these societies consisteth in the order that is kept, when every wheel moves in its place without clashing, when every one contributes by performing the duty of his place to the benefit of the whole society. But, more distinctly, then a person stands orderly in his place when he doth these three things.

First, When he understands the peculiar duty of his place and relation. "The wisdom of the prudent is to

understand his way," Prov. xiv. 8. his way, that is the way which he in particular is to walk. It will not profit a man to know the way to York, if going to London; yet how prone are we to study another's way and work than our own; the servant what his master's duty is, not what his is to his master; the people what the minister in his place should do, rather than what is incumbent on themselves to such as are over them in the Lord. It is not knowing another's duty, no nor censuring the negligence of another, but doing our own, will bring us safely and comfortably to our journey's end; and how can we do it, except we know it? Solomon in no one thing gave a greater proof of his wisdom, than in asking of God wisdom to enable him for the duty of his place.

Secondly, When, knowing the duty of our place, we conscientiously attend to it, and lay out ourselves for God therein. What Paul charged Timothy in his place, that every Christian must do in his; he must meditate on these things, and give himself wholly to the discharge of his duty as a Christian in such a place and calling, en toutois isthi, 1 Tim. iv. 15. be in them; let thy heart be on thy work, and thou wholly taken up about it. The very power of godliness lies in this. Religion, if not made practicable in our several places and callings, be comes ridiculous, and vanisheth into an empty notion that is next to nothing. Yet many there are that have nothing to prove themselves Christians but a naked profession, of whom we may say, as they do of the cinnamon tree, that the bark is more worth than all they have besides. Such the Apostle speaks of, "they profess that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and to every good work reprobate." Tit. i. 16. What good works the Apostle means will appear by the next words, chap. ii. 1, where, in opposition to these, he presseth those duties which Christians in their particular places and relations (as becometh holiness) ought to perform. A good Christian and a disobedient wife, a godly man and an unfaithful servant, or undutiful child, is a contradiction that can never be reconciled. He that walks not uprightly in his house, is but an hypocrite at church. He that is not a Christian

in his shop, is not in his closet a Christian, though upon his knees in prayer. Wound religion in one part, and it is felt in every part. If it declines one way, it cannot thrive in any other. other. All that miscarry in religion do not the same way miscarry. As it is in the regard of our natural life, some (it is observed) die upwards, some downwards: in one, the extreme parts, his feet, are first dead, and from them death creeps up to the legs, and so at last takes hold on the vitals; in another his superior parts are first invaded. Thus in profession, some their declining appears first in a negligence of duties about their particular callings, and duties they owe by their place and relation to man, who all this while seem very forward and zealous in the duties of worship to God, much in hearing, praying, and such like: others falter first in these, and are at the same time very strict in the other; both destructive alike to the soul, they both meet in the ruin of the power of godliness. He stands orderly that makes conscience of the whole duty that lies on him in his place to God or man.

Thirdly, to stand orderly, it is requisite that we keep the bounds of our place and calling. The Israelites were commanded" to pitch every man by his own standard," Numb. ii. 2. The Septuagint translates it, kata tagma, according to order. God allows no stragglers from their station in his army of saints. "As the Lord hath called every man, so let him walk." 1 Cor. vii. 17. Our walk must be in that path which our call beats out. We are therefore commanded every one "to do his own business," 1 Thess. iv. 11. That which is the commander's business in an army, is not the private soldier's; the magistrate's, not the subject's; the minister's, not the people's. That which is justice in the ruler, is murder in another. They are our own things that come within the compass of our general or particular calling; out of these, we are out of our diocese. O what a quiet world should we have, if every thing and person knew his own place! If the sea kept its own place, we should have no inundations; if men had kept theirs, we should neither have seen such floods of sin nor miseries as this unhappy age has been almost drowned with. But it must be a

strong bank indeed that can contain our fluid spirits within our own limits. Peter himself was sharply chid for prying, out of a curiosity, into that which concerned him not. "What is that to thee?" John xxi. 22. as if Christ had said, Peter, meddle with thy own matters, this concerns not thee: which sharp rebuke (saith one) might possibly make Peter afterwards give so strict a charge against, and set so black a brand upon this very sin, as you may find, 1 Pet. iv. 15, where he ranks the busy body among murderers and thieves.

Now to fix every one in his place, and persuade all to stand orderly there without breaking their rank, these five considerations, methinks, may carry some weight, among those especially with whom the word of God in the Scripture yet keeps its authority, to conclude and determine their thoughts.

1. Consider, what thou doest out of thy place is not acceptable to God, because thou canst not do it in faith, "without which it is impossible to please God;" and it cannot be in faith, because thou hast no call. God will not thank thee for doing that which he did not set thee about. Possibly thou hast good intentions; so had Uzzah in staying the ark; yet how well God liked his zeal, see 2 Sam. vi. 7. Saul himself could make a fair story of his sacrificing, but that served not his turn. It concerns us not only to ask ourselves what the thing is we do, but also who requireth this at our hands? To be sure God will at last put us upon that question, and it will go ill with us if we cannot shew our commission. So long we must needs neglect what is our duty, as we are busy about that which is not. The spouse confesseth this, Cant. i. 6,

They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept;" she could not mind theirs and her own too: our own iron will cool while we are heating another's. And this must needs be displeasing to God, to leave the work God sets us about, to do that he never commanded. When a master calls a truantly scholar to account, that hath been missing some days from school, would this be a good plea for him to tell his master, that he was all the while in such a man's

shop at work with his tools? No sure, his business lay at school, not in that shop.

2. By going out of our proper place and calling, we put ourselves from under God's protection: the promise is, he will keep us in "all our ways," Psalm xci. 11. when we go out of our way, we go from under his wing. We have an excellent place for this, 1 Cor. vii. 24, "Let every one wherein he is called, therein abide with God." Mark that phrase, "abide with God." As we love to walk in God's company, we must abide in our place and calling, every step from that is a departure from God; and better to stay at home in a mean place, and low calling, wherein we may enjoy God's sweet presence, than go to court and there live without him. It is likely you have heard of that holy bishop, that in a journey came to an inn, and by some discourse with the host, finding him to be an atheist, or very atheistical, presently calls for his servant to bring him his horse, saying, he would not lodge there, for God was not in that place. Truly when thou art in any place, or about any work to which thou art not called, we may safely say, God is not in that place, or enterprise; and what a bold adventure is it to stay there, where you cannot expect his presence to assist, or protect? "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place," Prov. xxvii. 8. God took special care that the "bird sitting over her eggs in her nest" should not be hurt, Deut. xxii. 6. but we find nothing to secure her if found abroad. In doing the duty of our place, we have Heaven's word for our security; but upon our own peril be it, if we wan der; then we are like Shimei out of his precincts, and lay ourselves open to some judgment or other. It is alike dangerous to do what we are not called to, and to neglect or leave undone the duty of our place. As the earth could not bear Korah's usurpation of what belonged not to them, but swallowed them up, so the sea could not but bear witness against Jonah the runaway prophet, disdaining to waft him that fled from his place and work that God called him to. Nay Heaven itself would not harbour the angels, when once they left their own place and office that their Maker had appointed; so those words,